A life of experiences

Setting a baseline

I’ve recently started a new running challenge I set myself to keep (or get) me motivated to get out more and get some miles in. I want to be able to run a 5:59 mile some day, and since I’m not getting any younger, I’d like to get this done sooner rather than later.

Today I went out for my first timed mile in years, to set the baseline which I will have work with in the months to come. The weather was ideal, not too hot with a bit of rain. After a short warmup I started off holding myself back a little, as I had no idea what I was capable of and didn’t want to blow up too early. In hindsight, I’m pretty glad I did this as it turns out that running a mile on full speed isn’t exactly easy! The first half was okay, but after that it really starts to hurt, and your body is ever louder screaming to stop.

I did manage to keep on running until the end of the mile though, which is a definite plus as my willpower isn’t exactly my strong point when it comes to running when tired. When I came home and checked my time, I was positively surprised as I managed to complete my first timed mile in ages in 6’42”. I didn’t really expect to get it done in under 7 minutes, let alone get well under it like I did.

This gives me a great starting point and good motivation to start working on my base speed and my running form in the coming weeks and months. Especially the latter, as I’m sure it didn’t look pretty, especially not in the second half of the mile. That aside, I’m writing this feeling pretty good about myself. I plan to do a test mile every other week to keep track of the progress, and I’ll post my results here of course!

ABOUT

Hi, I'm Bas! Welcome to my personal weblog, where I keep track of all the things I want to do before I kick the bucket, and the actions I take in order to achieve them. I hope this will inspire you to do something similar. Life's too short!